Aircraft ride quality is important to aircraft passengers and flight crews. This ride quality generally deteriorates when the aircraft flies through atmospheric turbulence. Advanced flight control systems, e.g., Fly-by-wire, typically feature control laws that use pilot control commands and inertial and air data sensor data as inputs to control algorithms in the Flight Control Computer (FCC) to move flight control surfaces and thus improve flight path control and stability. The sensor feedback in these conventional systems, however, is entirely reactive. For example, these conventional aircraft must experience the deteriorated ride quality before any stability control becomes active. Accordingly, these conventional aircraft have limited ability to smooth the aircraft response in turbulence.
As such, it is desirable to provide a flight control system with improved ride quality. In addition, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.